Windows Live Profile is your one-stop online hub, and far from it just being another profile to put your face to and leave, it's one of the most effective services on the Web for managing your online life.
In the great social networking debates of the past couple of years, enough reasons have been thrown about for liking one service over another that at times, you could be forgiven for wanting to go back to the days when your online activities were limited to sending e-mails and instant messages. At least back then, it was simple, it was two-way traffic and, let's face it, it seemed like a lot less work. However, it could also be quite boring.
We all occasionally yearn for the days before the social networking boom — the days when you were more likely to turn your head side-on if someone asked to see your profile. But let's be clear: the possibilities for what you can do online now are so far ahead of where they were even a few years ago that there's little point in looking back teary-eyed. However, with these possibilities, come a hell of a lot more things to stay on top of. That's where your Windows Live Profile comes in.
With your profile you can do all the things you'd expect to be able to do with any other personal social networking page. You might want to start off by setting up your profile in much the same way as you might have for any number of other online services: choose a profile picture, publish a status update, upload some photos, and start adding contacts to your network.
One of Windows Live Profile's big pluses is that most of this is only a couple of clicks away, as you can easily add any of your contacts from Hotmail, Messenger, Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. And any photos you've uploaded into Photo Gallery or SkyDrive will automatically appear in your profile.
So what really sets Windows Live Profile apart?
It's the only social networking page where you can send and receive updates to and from more than 50 other social networks and online services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Last FM, and Photobucket, just to name a few.
The thinking behind it is simple: you need a place where you can see what the people closest to you are doing across the Web. That's where the "What's New" feed comes in. Every time one of your Windows Live contacts uploads photos to Flickr, posts a comment on a mutual friend's Facebook wall or sends a new update using Twitter, you'll see it as long as they've chosen these activities to share using the Windows Live "Web Activities" function. And if you do the same, your friends will be able to see what you've been doing across the Web in their "What's New" feeds.
It's about keeping it easy. That's the new Windows Live.
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